RIO DE JANEIRO, March 19 (AFP) - EU trade commissioner Pascal Lamy said Sunday that Europe is not as closed to Brazilian exports "as sometimes is said," at the start of his six-day South American tour.
"If you look at Brazilian exports to the European Union, you can see that two-thirds of the trade volume is tariff-free. It is not as closed as sometimes is said," Lamy said.
Lamy said he plans to meet with Brazilian officials to discuss relations between the EU and Mercosur -- the South American customs union that comprises Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. But he said that multilateral talks would be a better format for discussing trade between the two groups.
Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso is set to go to Europe in April, and Lamy said he would make some preparations for that visit during this trip.
On his first day in Rio, Lamy visited two of the city's notorious shantytowns, known as "favelas," where EU-funded projects to improve sanitation are underway.
On Monday, Lamy is to meet with the governor of Rio de Janeiro state, Anthony Garotinho, and with business leaders here and in Sao Paulo. He is also scheduled to give a speech on world trade at the University of Sao Paulo.
On Tuesday, Lamy meets with labor leaders and will travel with Agriculture Minister Marcus Vinicius Pratini de Moraes to the city of Uberlandia, in the interior of Sao Paulo state.
He then heads to Brasilia to meet with Cardoso and the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jose Sarney.:
